


Tenderized

by GoldenWaffles



Series: A Round of Wynaught Shots [3]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: EFA Fic Challenge 2020, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Nicole Haught is a Good Friend, We Need to Talk About Alice, Wynaught Brotp, Wynonna Does Have Feelings Sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25791994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenWaffles/pseuds/GoldenWaffles
Summary: Wynonna is having a pretty bad time when she gets a surprising dinner invitation from her sort-of-friend-slash-probably-future-sister-in-law Nicole. They bond over steaks and beers and maybe a little talk about heavier topics.A little sappy, but in a good way.Takes place soon after 3x07.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught, Wynonna Earp & Nicole Haught
Series: A Round of Wynaught Shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160669
Comments: 44
Kudos: 291





	Tenderized

**Author's Note:**

> Weirdly, I'd had the thought for this fic before the "tender" prompt, but I wouldn't have likely ever gotten around to it except that steaks are tender and that made it really convenient. I just still like Wynaught being bros and Wynonna being reluctantly fond of Nicole's sappiness. Especially now that they're BEST FRIENDS, NO TAKE-BACKS. So enjoy this little visit between them.
> 
> (Oh, and Wynonna's atrocious cooking skills are an homage to the Twizzler Surprise she serves Doc in S3. Ridiculous.)

It had been a hellish morning in a hellish week of hellish days, and when Wynonna’s phone buzzed with an incoming text, her first thought was _What fresh hell is this going to be about?_ With her luck, Bulshar had amassed an army of werewolves, or clowns with knives, or maybe werewolf clowns with knives—

_**Nicole:** Hey, want to come over for dinner tonight?_

Wynonna rolled her eyes at her own catastrophizing, and with a huff of relief, texted back.

_**Wynonna:** Wrong number, genius. Your girlfriend is the other W Earp._  
_**Wynonna:** And she and Jeremy are in the City all day._

She tried not to feel any envy at the reminder that her sister had social things like dinner plans and date nights and a partner who hadn’t turned himself into a goddamn vamp—

_**Nicole:** I was asking YOU, Wynonna_  
_**Nicole:** Do you REALLY think I don’t know Waverly’s number?_  
_**Nicole:** Seriously?_

Wynonna stared down at the message, dumbfounded. Since when did Haught invite her over to dinner? Since never, that’s when. And sure, they had been getting along better since the whole Coyote Ugly Gnome Wife Fiasco, and sure, they were _technically_ friends, but still…

_**Wynonna:** Why?_

She and Nicole didn’t _hang out_ together, by any stretch of the imagination. They occasionally found themselves sharing the same bottle of whiskey, and there was the odd occasion when her traitorous sister sent the cop to babysit her, but they weren’t “want-to-come-to-dinner-tonight” friends.

Unless maybe Haught had bad news that she wanted to break in person. Or good news. (As if any of them _ever_ had good news…)

_**Nicole:** Because I have nothing else do do tonight_

_**Wynonna:** Get a hobby_

_**Nicole:** I have hobbies_  
_**Nicole:** Just none that I can do in chest-high snow_  
_**Nicole:** Plus, my neighbors gave me a bunch of steaks in return for house-sitting, and I can’t exactly share them with Waverly_

There it was. So it wasn’t just that she wanted to hang out. She needed a fellow omnivore.

Well, Wynonna could think of worse ways to spend an evening than eating a bunch of steaks in the company of her sort-of-friend-slash-probably-future-sister-in-law. And if she stayed at home, with Waverly away and Doc banished and Mama run off, she didn’t really have any evening plans, unless you counted getting drunk and trying not to think about what Gus and Alice might be doing right then.

_**Wynonna:** Fine_

_**Nicole:** I’m honored_  
_**Nicole:** Be here at 7_

* * *

When Wynonna pulled up to Haught’s house— at 7:20, just to be petty— it felt weird without Waverly as a buffer or someone like Bunny as a common enemy.

The whole house was buried in snow, but the driveway and sidewalk had been meticulously shoveled and salted. Wynonna’s hands were full of a six-pack of beer and the awkward weight of a foil-covered casserole pan that she was regretting more by the second, so instead of knocking, she kicked Haught’s door with the side of her boot.

Nicole answered the door in plain clothes— jeans and some kind of jersey with a flaming C on it, her hair tied back. Her eyebrows rose at the items in Wynonna’s hands.

“Hey.” She pushed the door open wider. “Come on in.” As Wynonna brushed past her, Nicole eyed the casserole dish with open curiosity. “What did you bring?”

“A casserole. Of sorts. Whatever we had in the fridge, I guess. Mostly cheese.” Wynonna tried to shrug it off, but Nicole didn’t back down, and when Wynonna left it on the counter to put the beer in the fridge (where it joined a small army of its brethren), Nicole peeled back the foil to peek underneath. She stared at the contents in silence for far longer than Wynonna was comfortable with. Finally, she tucked the foil back into place.

“Girl…” Nicole warned, giving her a disbelieving look. “I love you, and I’m legitimately touched that you tried to bring something…” She pointed at the casserole. “But we are not eating that.”

It would take getting used to, this thing where Nicole now felt empowered to say the _L word_ around her. It was weird, and Wynonna very desperately wanted to hate it… but she didn’t. If anything, it was… kinda nice. Not all the time, just… maybe every once in awhile.

“Fine. Your loss.” She watched with amusement as Nicole maneuvered the dish into the fridge with the caution of someone handling a live landmine. She emerged with two bottles of beer and handed one off to Wynonna.

As Haught prepped the meal, conversation fell to work talk— recent cases they had both worked, or strange happenings they had heard rumors about. Wynonna wasn’t sure what exactly was expected of her; it wasn’t often she was anybody’s houseguest. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had willingly invited her into their home. But Nicole didn’t seem to want or need her help, so she just sat at Nicole's clean wooden table, drinking and holding up her end of the conversation.

Eventually, Nicole’s orange monster of a cat waddled in, apparently scoping out their new visitor. Wynonna had never been a huge fan of pets, but she had respect for this cat and its dedication to harassing Bun-Bun Loblaw, so she gave it an awkward pat as it marched past her to rub against its owner’s legs. It ignored her, which suited them both.

And then the steaks came out.

“Holy mother of cows, where did you say you got these from?” Wynonna asked, sitting up to get a better view. They were the biggest, thickest, most beautifully marbled steaks she had ever seen in her life.

“I was house-sitting for my neighbors while they were visiting some relatives of theirs who own a ranch. They came back with like a ten-year supply of meat, so they offered me some as thanks.”

Wynonna fought the urge to wolf-whistle at the steaks like a horny construction worker. They were _that_ sexy.

“Waves doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

“She does,” Nicole chided her. “She just thinks it’s worth the trade-off.”

Wynonna grunted.

“You know, I almost went vegan once. Or vegetarian, at least,” she admitted. Nicole literally stopped what she was doing to turn around and stare at her.

“You? Wynonna ‘Bacon is a Food Group’ Earp? Seriously?”

Wynonna rolled her eyes.

“Hey, I didn’t say I’d thought it through all the way. It just seemed like the right move at the time.”

“When? And _why_?”

“Well… Back in 2005, the town, for some godforsaken reason, decided to have a _chili cookoff_ …”

As their stack of empty bottles grew larger, Wynonna’s stories expanded into tales of her and Waverly’s on-and-off childhood, first at the homestead, then with Gus and Curtis. She kept to the lighter stories of their childhood, side-stepping the darker memories.

Although by this point, she wouldn’t be surprised if Haught already knew all about how they grew up— between Willa and Mama's unexpected re-appearances, surely it had come up in conversation.

“What about you?” Wynonna asked, after fading out of a story about the time she ‘borrowed’ Curtis’s truck to teach Waverly how to drive (an adventure that ended in a duck pond and was followed by Gus’s ‘encouragement’ that she leave town again for a good long while).

The steaks were seasoned and it was almost time to start cooking, but Haught was— for some unexplained reason— opening all the windows.

“What _about_ me?” the redhead asked, grunting as the last one tried to stick.

“You… When you were a kid. What was your family like?”

It felt a little weird to ask, but if they really _were_ friends— and it was getting harder to deny, even for her— then it seemed reasonable to be curious. And since Nicole definitely knew all their dark childhood secrets by now— their drunk asshole of a father, their crazy mess of a mother, their traitorous dead sister— it might as well cut both ways.

Nicole seemed to mull the question over for a minute, while the steaks rested on the counter.

“My parents... couldn't hold still. They would get these whims about places they wanted to visit, or live, and they would just uproot everything and head off.”

Wynonna wasn’t always the smartest or most perceptive person in the room, but she had her moments, and Nicole had definitely said ‘they,’ not ‘we.’

“And you?” she prompted, already feeling an ominous weight in her chest. Nicole shrugged.

“I mean, when they moved, they had to bring me with. But they didn't like to when they were just traveling, if they could avoid it.” Nicole said it very casually, but a sudden hardness in her face gave away some underlying bitterness. She seemed to chase it away with a long swig of beer and a shake of her head. “They were... free spirits, or something. They liked being able to just drop everything and hop a plane. I think they'd pictured having a kid who was just like them, but... I wasn't. And they didn't know what to do with that.” She shrugged. “They just didn't want to be parents,” she said finally, like it was just that simple.

As she spoke, Wynonna felt a low-level rage simmering under her skin, gradually rolling into a full boil, prickling behind her eyes. On Nicole’s behalf, for one— sure, she could be uptight and a holier-than-thou ball-buster sometimes, but she was also loyal and good-natured and tender-hearted. She treated the Earps like family, and if she hadn't learned that from her parents, well then that just made her all the better for it.

But the thought of parents who didn't want to be parents… who couldn't even be bothered to _try_ … who could get a kid as good and decent as Nicole and just... not even _want_ her.

Parents who could miss out on their kid's whole childhood and just... not care.

Sure, she hadn't wanted to be a parent at first, either. But now... _Now_...

_Was there anything she wouldn’t give…_

“Wynonna?” Nicole’s voice was careful. Gentle. Far too perceptive.

“That's not an excuse," she ground out finally.

“No, it’s not,” Nicole agreed— simply, quietly. “They should have been better.”

"What about now?” Wynonna asked, dreading the answer.

“I don't know,” Nicole said. “We don't talk anymore. I learned that I couldn’t count on them, and that they weren’t going to change. They didn’t want to be parents then, and they still don’t now.” She shook her head, and gave a mirthless chuckle. “Besides, they hate cops.”

“Assholes,” Wynonna snarled.

“Wynonna, _you_ hate cops.” Nicole’s voice softened somewhat with amusement.

“Yeah, I _really_ do, but that doesn't mean I hate _you_.” The anger burned like bile in her mouth. “And if _my_ daughter…” She nearly choked on the word. “If she wanted… If she _wants_ to be a cop when she grows up, I'm not going to stop her, and I'm not going to _hate_ her, and I'm not going to stop talking to her. If that makes her happy, then I'll just freaking _deal_ with it.”

That’s what parents were _supposed_ to do.

Not like Haught’s.

Not like hers, either.

“I know.” Nicole’s voice was calm, and empathetic, and it cooled some of the rage building in her chest, like a breath of winter air.

“If we ever...” Wynonna started, but choked on the words before she could finish. Haught understood anyway.

“Hey," Nicole’s voice was firm, and her gaze was steady. “We _will_. We'll break the curse, we'll make it safe, and Alice will come home. You'll be a great… _extremely_ unorthodox mom.”

Wynonna’s hands were shaking, but the anger was starting to die down.

“You and Waverly will be kick-ass aunts,” she said after a few beats. Nicole grinned at her.

“Hey, lesbian aunts are the coolest aunts. That’s just science.” She held her arms out, as if in demonstration.

It was oddly fascinating, imagining Nicole with Alice. She usually thought about Doc, or Waverly, but there was no reason to believe that Nicole wouldn’t be just as big a feature in her life.

“Did you get to hold her? Before she left?” Wynonna asked abruptly.

The smile faltered from Nicole’s face. She took a moment to answer.

“No,” she said finally. Her voice was soft, but Wynonna could hear the disappointment and regret in it. “I didn't want to take any time away from Waverly. I felt bad enough that she didn't know about the plan.”

Maybe it was the alcohol’s influence, but she could have sworn she saw tears in Haught’s eyes. Maybe that was what pushed her over the edge.

Maybe it was worst for her, and for Doc, but it affected everyone. Waverly. Nicole.

As if reading her mind, Nicole smiled sadly. “Did Jeremy tell you, he wants to teach her how to rap?”

Okay, so _that_ ridiculous thought pushed her over the edge, from tears blurring her eyes to a single, ugly sob wrenching itself from her chest.

It was just the one. Wynonna was good at this part. She could control this. She could hold it back.

She sniffed hard and wiped at her eyes. She blinked furiously and swallowed the lump from her throat.

She didn’t even dare to _look_ at Nicole. If that sap was crying, too, it would just set her off again, and then eventually she’d have to murder Haught and hide her body so that no one would know that Wynonna Earp was capable of _feelings_.

"Don't tell Waverly I was crying,” she said, once she was steady enough to speak.

"Okay, but under one condition,” Haught said.

"What?" Wynonna croaked.

"Stand up."

“Why?”

Haught sighed.

“Come on. Humor me just this once.”

Reluctantly, Wynonna rose to her feet, accompanied by the sound of the chair scraping the floor, and found herself slowly but deliberately pulled into a hug. As if Nicole were giving her the opportunity to break away if she needed to.

She didn’t.

Instead, she just let it happen. Wynonna wasn’t a hugger by any stretch of the word, but about once a decade or so, she could maybe admit to needing one, and now qualified.

Wynonna had never thought of _hugging_ as a skill before, but Nicole, softie that she was, was some kind of expert at it. Her grip was tight enough to feel stabilizing without feeling confining, strong and protective but somehow also gentle. Plus, she was impressively warm, and when Wynonna sniffled against her shoulder…

“Did anyone ever tell you you smell like _donuts_?” Wynonna asked, somewhat thrown by the discovery. Nicole released her with a bark of laughter, giving her shoulders an extra squeeze as she pulled back.

“Yes, your sister, all the time.” Nicole chuckled. “I can’t smell it, but she says it’s just like vanilla-dipped donuts.”

“Huh… Weird…” Wynonna reflexively wanted to think of something insulting or sarcastic to say, to de-sentimentalize the situation. But she couldn’t think of anything.

The knot in her chest had loosened, and she felt steadier. She wondered what a normal person would do now. Thank their friend? Open up more?

She sank back down into her chair, uncapped another beer, and handed it up to Nicole.

“Your parents sound like morons.”

* * *

In ranking sheer levels of pleasure, those steaks scored higher than most of the sex she’d had in recent years. Wynonna meant to take off right after eating, but she’d had more beers than she had planned, and she found herself sprawling on Haught’s couch while the giant ginger cat tried to chase the fringe on her leather jacket.

“Try scratching her chin. It’ll distract her,” Haught advised, noticing her struggle.

Wynonna eyed the cat warily.

“If you bite me for this, you’re roadkill, understand?” she told it firmly, then scooped it up and began scritching under its chin. Calamity Jane closed her eyes and stretched into her fingers, finally losing interest in eating her jacket in favor of this new activity. Within seconds, Wynonna felt a rumble as she began purring.

She still wasn’t a cat person, but it wasn’t half bad.

She got bored on the couch after a few minutes and stood up, taking the cat with her. She had expected it to get tired of having its chin scratched, but apparently that was impossible. If anything, it just kept purring louder and rubbing its whiskers against her hand.

With the purring lump in her arms, she made a circle of the room, snooping for clues and/or blackmail material.

She walked by the desk first. It sported a neat line of post-it note reminders about chores or errands, and a page-a-day calendar that was actually flipped to the correct page. Wynonna flipped it a few pages back just to see if she’d notice.

There was a surprising range of books on her bookshelves— everything from procedural manuals to kitschy-sounding novels, travel guides, photo albums, a swath of religious texts, and some books that sounded straight out of a liberal arts gender studies course. There were even a few dry-sounding history tomes that smacked of Waverly’s influence. Shifting the massive cat to one arm, she pulled one down from the shelf and spotted something behind it, only realizing after a moment of staring that it was a bra.

Well, to each their own. Some people used dressers...

The top of the bookshelf was a mini-gallery of framed pictures.

Predictably, the largest of them was a shot of Nicole and Waverly on the Homestead’s porch. Wynonna had never been a fan of couple photos, but even she could admit that it was kinda sweet— and more importantly, her sister looked ridiculously happy in it.

Beside that photo was a group shot, of all of them together— Nicole and Waverly, Jeremy, Doc, Dolls, and Wynonna. It looked to be from the same night as Dolls’s picture, only from a different angle. It left her with an empty, aching feeling. Dolls was gone now, and Doc… How many more people from that photo would they lose before the curse was broken? Before they could get Alice back?

A final photo, off to one side, caught her attention. She recognized that one, too— the picture from Nedley’s closet, of him with tiny 6-year-old Nicole. The picture had obviously been flattened and repaired and given a place of honor. Its existence seemed to underline the fact that there were no pictures of Nicole’s actual parents on display.

Looking at it closer, it probably should have been obvious that it wasn’t Chrissy. She had known Chrissy Nedley at that age, and she and Tiny Nicole didn’t look anything alike.

Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was thoughts about Alice, or maybe she was just getting sentimental in her advanced age, but she suddenly found herself wondering… If Nicole had a daughter someday, would she look like that?

Which made her picture Nicole and Waverly with kids. Kids who could play with Alice as they all grew up together, one extended family.

All their childhoods had been crap, but they could do better. They _would_ do better.

And _god_ , she shuddered to think what sappy parents those two lovebirds would make. Their kids would be _drowning_ in love.

Her snooping was interrupted by Nicole re-entering the room, and Wynonna hurriedly rubbed at her eyes, just in case. She had already debased herself enough for one night by crying earlier.

Nicole paused by the desk, frowning, and flipped the calendar back to the correct page. When she returned her attention to Wynonna, there was a spark of amusement in her eyes.

“Wow, she must like you. She usually hates being picked up.” Calamity was still purring like a motorboat against her chest.

“Well, it’s like carrying around a furry bowling ball, so I’m surprised anyone tries that often.”

“Yeah, I gave her one of those timed feeders, since sometimes I’m at work or the Homestead, but I think she’s figured out how to knock it over.”

“Clever cat.”

“Too clever.” Nicole flopped back onto the couch. She looked slightly flushed, but not fully drunk. Having seen her both after their eventful visit to Pussy Willows and their ill-fated trip to the biker bar, she did consider herself a bit of an expert in Drunk Nicole, and this wasn’t quite it. She was just a little looser than normal, a little lighter.

As if aware that they were talking about it, the cat started to squirm in her arms. She moved to set it down, but it leapt from her hands onto the back of the couch, walking over to perch behind its owner— with a surprisingly dainty step for what amounted to a small lion.

“Hey, CJ,” Nicole greeted the cat, reaching back to rub it behind the ears. It gave an enormous stretch in response, and Nicole chuckled. “What a good girl,” she cooed.

Yep, she would definitely make for a sappy mother. Or father? Wynonna wasn’t sure about the terminology, but Nicole definitely had the ‘dad’ energy in the couple.

The cat raised its head without warning, ears pricked as if hearing a sudden noise. It jumped down from the couch with a _thunk_ that shook the floor, and trotted over to stand at the door, tail high and swishing.

“Oh, that’s probably—” Nicole started, cutting out as a key turned the lock and the door swung open. “Hey, world traveler, welcome back!”

Waverly entered, closing the door behind her as Calamity Jane greeted her with a yowl.

“I love Jeremy, but I swear, he spent the whole drive home talking about— Wynonna?” Waverly clearly hadn’t expected to find her sister on her girlfriend’s couch.

“See, I knew he had a crush on me. I could see it in his eyes,” Wynonna said, mock-seriously. Nicole had already stood and was moving to intercept Waverly at the door.

“Since when do you two hang out?” Waverly asked, accepting a hug and a quick, chaste kiss.

“I invited her over,” Nicole said lightly, taking Waverly’s coat and scarf as she slipped them off.

“And she said yes?”

“There were steaks involved,” Wynonna said defensively.

Nicole nodded, adding, “I opened the windows so the whole house wouldn’t smell like it, but you might want to stay away from the kitchen until morning.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Waverly said, in a tone that made it clear that she was, in fact, _very_ glad Nicole had done that. A gleam in her eye gave Wynonna the impression that Haught would be _thanked_ for her thoughtfulness later that night.

“Well, I should probably head out,” Wynonna said, suddenly eager to avoid intruding. This house felt more like Nicole and Waverly’s space, the same way the Homestead felt like hers and Waverly’s. The last thing she needed was to make them feel like they needed to police themselves in the privacy of Nicole’s own home.

Waverly, who was still standing by the door, _very_ close to her girlfriend, looked surprised by this.

“You’re leaving?”

“I have a guest room,” Nicole offered. “If you’d rather crash here.”

“Not even if you paid me,” Wynonna said emphatically. “I have to overhear enough of your sex life at the Homestead, I shudder to think what you get up to in here.”

“Are you good to drive?” Nicole asked, ever the cop.

“Psh,” Wynonna scoffed. “Like it’s even _possible_ for me to get drunk on beer. Please.” She breezed past the couple, gently knocking her sister’s shoulder as she reached for the door. “Waves, I’ll see you tomorrow. Haught…” She tried to think of something crass to say in farewell, but couldn’t quite muster it. “Bye.”

As she closed the door behind herself, leaving her sister and her probably-future-sister-in-law to their own devices, feeling a lot lighter and better than she had all week, she wondered if maybe a little tenderness wasn’t the worst thing ever.

In steaks. Obviously.


End file.
